The term (phase) “Linux Hosting” refers to a web hosting service provided form a Linux OS (Unix) based web server. Various Liunux distributions are used as server operating systems. Most of the well known, reliable Internet hosting providers run Linux distributions on their web servers.

Linux OS and Linux based servers are very popular because of the open source software collaboration, which allows the source code to be used, modified and redistributed from anyone. The distribution could be commercial or non-commercial under the GNU General Public License. The Linux OS is packaged in a format known as a Linux distribution. Some of the most popular Linux distributions used on web servers are Red Hat Enterprice Linux, CentOS, Debian, (Ubuntu), Fedora and openSUSE.